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COMMEMORATION
FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY
ORGANIZATION
The American ^nti-Slavery Jociety,
PHILADELPHIA.
1834
PHILADELPHIA:
1 ho1-. P. Danho & Co., Printers and Publish kr?, ' -3 fi^
No. 307 Walnut Stkekt. ^*
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PREFACE
Of the men and women who, in 1833, united to initiate a
movement for abolishing Slavery in the United States, and
who thenceforward bore the name of Abolitionists, there are
few survivors at the close of half a century. In accordance
with the wish of some of these, the Serni-Centennial Anni-
versary of the organization of The American Anti-Slavery
Society was celebrated by a public Meeting, on the fourth day of
December, 1SS3, in the city where that society was organized
in December, 1833. It was an occasion of historic reminis-
cences and devout thanksgiving, on the part of the earlier and
later workers who bore the beat and burden of those years ;
and of sympathetic interest of the younger portion of the
assembly. As a contribution to the records of that great
enterprise, the results of which will last while this nation
endures, a sketch of the proceedings of this meeting ig
given to the public.
{*)
— > C ALL.-
1833. 1883.
Semi-Centennial of Freedom.
The "American Anti-Slavery Society" was organized at a
Convention held in Philadelphia, on the fourth, fifth, and
sixth of December, 1833.
That event marks an epoch in the famous moral agitation
which culminated in the final overthrow of Slavery, and the
reconstruction of the American Union on the basis of IM-
PARTIAL Liberty and Impartial Law.
A new generation has arisen, to whom the record of the
brave struggle of the American Abolitionists may well be
commended as a historic treasure, and an inspiring lesson.
A meeting to celebrate the Semi-Centennial of this event
will be held in Horticultural Hall, Philadelphia, commencing
on the fourth day of December next, at 10 A. M.
We hope for the presence of the few surviving members of
the convention, and other leading actors in the great move-
ment; and a general invitation is hereby extended to the
public.
ROBERT PURVIS,
Chairman.
DANIEL NEALL,
Secretary.
(4)
PROCEEDINGS.
The meeting was called to order by James A. Wright, who
said :
We have with us here to-day one who has been identified
with the Anti-Slavery movement from its inception ; one who
has borne his full share in the conflict which culminated in
the overthrow of American Slavery.
He is one of the four survivors of the sixty persons who
signed the Declaration of Sentiment of the National Con-
vention which met in Philadelphia just fifty years ago to-day,
to found The American Anti-Slavery Society.
He is one of Philadelphia's well known citizens, and it is
eminently fitting that such a one should preside over your
deliberations. I therefore nominate Robert Purvis as your
presiding officer.
Mr. Purvis, being unanimously elected, came forward, and
after acknowledging a hearty greeting by the audience, took
the chair, and read the names of the vice-presidents and
secretaries.
Among them were the following :
Vice-Presidents — >
Elizur Wright, Mass.,
llev. Wm. II. Furness, Penna.,
Simon Barnard, Penna.,
Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Jr., Mass.,
Elijah F. Pennypacker, Penna.,
Mary Earle, Penna.,
(6)
Edward M. Davis, Penna.,
Daniel Neall, Penna.,
Passraore Williamson, Penna.,
Hon. Samuel G. King, Penna.,
Rev. Samuel Longfellow, Mass.,
Sydney Howard Gay, N. Y.,
James A. Wright, Pa.,
Rev. Joseph May, Penna.,
Edward Lewis, Penna.,
Robert Walcott, Mass.,
Samuel E. Sewall, Mass..
Elizabeth Buflum Chase, R. L,
Lucy Stone, Mass.,
Jonathan Whipple, R. I.,
Sarah H. Hallock, N. Y.,
Theodore D. Weld, Mass.,
Joseph A. Dugdale, Iowa.,
Sarah Pugh, Penna.,
Dr. Hiram Corson, Pa.,
Parker Pillsbury, N. H..
Abby Kelley Foster, Mass.,
William Wells Brown, Mass.,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, N. Y.,
Amy Post, N. Y.
Rev. Samuel May, Mass.,
Barclay Gilbert, Ohio.
Emily Robinson, Ohio,
Pennock Pusey, Minn.
Secretaries —
Richard P. Hallowell, Majs.,
Robert R. Corson, Penna.,
Joseph Parrish, Penna.,
Ellis D. Williams, Penna.
Caroline H. Spear, Penna.
Mr. Purvis. — An opportunity is now offered to any one
present who may feel an inclination to engage in oral prayer.
Rev. Dr. Fukness responded to the invitation.
Almighty Father, inspirer of all good thoughts and purposes,
with Thee is the spirit as well as the answer of prayer. And
coming together now to honor the brave men and the heroic
deeds which this day commemorates, we lift up our hearts to
Thee and supplicate Thy blessing upon this meeting. May
the memory of the departed dwell again in our hearts, and
animate anew our love of equal justice and universal liberty.
We bless Thee for the signal manifestation of Thy providence ;
in that Thou hast relieved our country of its greatest curse
and sin ; and that we can come together on this day rejoicing
in the triumph of those principles for which the fathers lived
and died. May Thy kingdom come in all the earth, and Thy
will be done on earth as it is in Heaven, for Thine is the
kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever.
Robert Purvis. — We are here to-day, friends, to com-
memorate a semi-centennial anniversary.
This day fifty years ago, sixty-three persons, men and women,
met in Convention, in this city, in Adelphi Hall, on Fifth
6treet, below Walnut. They came for a purpose. They came
to organize a National Anti-Slavery Society. They were men
and women who believed in, and were loyal to, the grand
principles of our American Declaration of Independence.
And they were imbued and impelled by strong convictions
and a sublime faith in the teachings of that Christianity that
acknowledges a common falnerhood in God and brotherhood
in man. They came and pledged themselves to purge this
guilty nation from the curse and deadly sin of human slavery.
To this end they declared, come what might to their persons,
their interests, their reputations, or their lives; whether they
lived to witness the triumph of their cause, or perish untimely
as martyrs, they would be steadfast to their object. Their
8
trust for victory was solely in God. Their weapons were not
carnal but spiritual, mighty through God to the pulling down
of the strongholds of sin. Conscious of the invincibility and
resistless power of truth they said, "We may be personally
defeated ; but our principles, never " And they went forth in
the name of indignant justice, outraged humanity, and insulted
religion, and demanded an immediate and unconditional
emancipation as the right of the slave and the duty of the
master.
How they labored, how they worked, in season and out of
season, in storm as well as whatever of sunshine they may have
had, it is not at this time for me to speak. It is enough to
know, and we exultingly point to the fact, that five millions
of American slaves were enabled to spring out instantcr, from
the vileness and degradation of being chattels, to the higher
and nobler condition of freemen and American citizens.
We thought it pertinent at this stage of our meeting, as you
will expect some account of the character of the Convention,
and of the persons who went there, to call upon one of our
secretaries to read an article, which appeared more than ten
years ago, in the Atlantic Monthly, by that great humanitarian
poet of our own country, one of the signers of the Declaration
of Sentiments ; an honored one of the four survivors, John
G. Whittier. Mrs. Caroline Spear will read that account of
the convention :
ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION OF 1833.
By John G Whittier.
In the gray twilight of a chill day of la:c Novomber, forty
years ago, a dear friend of mine, residing in Boston, made his
appearance at the old farm-house in East Haverhill. He had
been deputed by the abolitionists of the city. William L. Garri-
son, Samuel E. Sewall, and others, to inform me of my appoint-
ment as a delegate to the Convention about to be held in
9
Philadelphia, for the formation of an American Anti-Slavery
Society ; and to urge upon me the necessity of my attendance.
Few words of persuasion,, however, were needed. A sum-
mons like that of Garrison's bugle blast could scarcely be
unheeded by mc.
*******
On reaching Philadelphia we at once betook ourselves to the
dwelling on Fifth street, occupied by Evan Lewis, a plain,
earnest man, and life-long abolitionist, who had been largely
interested in preparing the way for the Convention.
We found about forty members assembled in the parlors of
our friend Lewis, and, after some general conversation, Lewis
Tappan was asked to preside over an informal meeting, prepa-
ratory to the opening of the convention. A handsome, intel-
lectual-looking man, in the prime of life, responded to the
invitation, and, in a clear, well-modulated voice, the firm tones
of which inspired hope and confidence, stated the object of our
preliminary council, and the purpose which had called us
together, in earnest and well-chosen words. In making ar-
rangements for the convention, it was thought expedient to
secure, if possible, the services of some citizen of Philadelphia,
of distinction and high social standing, to preside over its high
deliberations. Looking around among ourselves in vain for
some titled civilian or doctor of divinity, we were fain to
confess that, to outward seeming, we were but "a feeble folk,"
sorely needing the shield of a popular name. A committee, of
which I was a member, was appointed to go in search of a
president of this description. We visited two prominent
gentlemen, known to be friendly to emancipation and of high
social standing. They received us with the dignified courtesv
of the old school, declindti our proposition in civil terms, and
bowed us out with a cool politeness, equalled only by that of
the senior Winkle towards the unlucky deputation of Pickwick
and his unprepossessing companions. As we left their doors
we could not refrain from smiling in each other's faces at the
thought of the small inducement our proffer of the presidency
10
held out to men of their class. Evidently our company was not
one for respectability to march through Coventry with.
On the following morning we repaired to the Adelphi
Building on Fifth Street below Walnut, which had been
secured for our use. Sixty-two delegates were found to be in
attendance Beriah Green, of the Oneida, (N. Y.) Institute,
was chosen president, a fresh-faced, sandy-haired, rather com-
mon looking man, but who had the reputation of an able and
eloquent speaker. He had already made himself known to us
as a i*esolute and self-sacrificing abolitionist. Lewis Tappan
and myself took our places at his side as secretaries, on the
elevation at the west end of the hall.
Looking over the assembly, I noticed that it was mainly
composed of comparatively young men, some of middle age,
and a few beyond that period. They were nearly all plainly
dressed, with a view to comfort rather than elegance. Many
of the faces turned towards me wore a look of expectancy and
suppressed enthusiam ; all had the earnestness which might be
expected of men engaged in an enterprise beset' with' difficulty,
and perhaps with peril. The fine, intellectual head of Garrison,
prematurely bald, was conspicuous ; the sunny-faced young
man at his side, in whom all the beatitudes seemed to find
expression, was Samuel J. May, mingling in his veins the best
blood of the Sewalls and Quincys. A man so exceptionally
pure and large hearted, so genial, tender and loving, that he
could be faithful to truth and duty without making an enemy.
"The de'il wad look into hi* face,
And swear he could'na wrung him."
That tall gaunt, swarthy man, erect, eagle-faced, upon whose
somewhat martial figure the Quaker coat seemed a little out of
place, was Lindley Coates, known in all Eastern Pennsylvania
as a stern enemy of slavery ; that slight eager man, intensely
alive in every feature and gesture, was Thomas Shipley, who
for thirty years had been the protector of the free colored people
of Philadelphia, and whose name was whispered reverently in
11
the slave cabins of Maryland as the friend of the black man,
one of the class peculiar to old Quakerism, who in doing what
they feel to be duty, and walking as the light within guided
them, knew no fear and shrank from no sacrifice. Beside him,
differing creed, but united with him in works of love and charity,
sat Thomas Whitson, of the Hicksite school of Friends. Elizur
Wright, the young professor of a Western College, who had
lost his place by his bold advocacy of freedom, with a sharp
concentration in keeping with an intellect keen as a Damascus
blade, closely watched the proceedings through his spectacles ;
opening his mouth only to speak directly to the purpose.
The portly form of Dr. Bartholomew Fussell, the beloved
physician, from that beautiful land of plenty and peace, which
Bayard Taylor described in his story of Kennett, was not to
be overlooked. Abolitionist in heart and soul, his house was
known as the shelter of runaway slaves ; and no sportsman
ever entered into the chase with such zest as he did into the
arduous and sometimes dangerous work of aiding their escape
and baffling their pursuers. The youngest man present, was I
believe, James Miller McKim. a Presbyterian minister from
Columbia, afterwards one of our most efficient workers. James
Mott, E. L. Capron, Arnold Buffum, and Nathan Wilson, men
well known in anti-slavery agitation, were conspicuous members.
Vermont sent down from her mountains Orson S. Murray, a
man terribly in earnest, with a zeal that bordered on fanaticism,
and who was none the more genial for the mob-violence to which
he had been subjected. In front of me, awakening pleasant
associations of the old homestead in Merrimack Valley, sat my
first school teacher, Joshua Coffin, the learned and worthy
antiquarian and historian of Newbury. A few spectators,
mostly of the Hicksite division of Friends, were present in
broad brims and plain bonnets, and among them Esther Moore
and Lucretia Mott.
Committees were chosen to draft a constitution for a National
Anti-slavery Society, nominate a list of officers, and prepare a
declaration of principles to be signed by the members. Dr.
12
Abraham L. Cox, of New York, while these committees were
absent, read something from my pen eulogistic of William
Lloyd Garrison; and Lewis Tappan, and Amos A. Phelps, a
Congregational clergyman of Boston, afterwards one of the
most devoted laborers in the cause, followed in generous com-
mendation of the zeal, courage and devotion of the young
pioneer. The president after calling James McCrummell, one
of the two or three colored members of the Convention, to the
chair, made some eloquent remarks upon those editors who had
ventured to advocate emancipation. At the close of his speech
a young man rose to speak whose appearance at once arrested
my attention. I think I have never seen a finer face and
figure, and his manner, words and bearing were in keeping.
" Who is he ? " I asked of one of the Pennsylvania delegates.
" Robert Purvis, of this city, a colored man," was the answer.
He began by uttering his heartfelt thanks to the delegates who
had convened for the deliverance of his people. He spoke of
Garrison in terms of warmest eulogy, as one who had stirred the
heart of the nation, broken the tomblike slumber of the church,
and compelled it to listen to the slave's wrongs. He closed by
declaring that the friends of the colored Americans would not
be forgotten. "Their memory," he said, "will be cherished
when pyramids and monuments shall have crumbled in dust."
" The flood of time which is sweeping away the refuge of
lies, is bearing on the advocates of our cause to a glorious
immortality."
********* *
The committee on the Declaration of Principles, of which 1
was a member, held a long session, discussing the proper scope
and tenor of the document. But little progress being made, it
was finally decided to entrust the matter to a sub-committee,
consisting of William L. Garrison, Samuel J. May, and myself;
and after a brief consultation and comparison of each other's
views, the drafting of the declaration was assigned to the former
gentleman. We agreed to meet him at his lodgings in the
house of a colored friend, early the next morning. It was still
13
dark when we climbed up to his room, and the lamp was still
burning, by the light of which he was writing the last sentence
of the declaration. We read it carefully, made a few verbal
changes, and submitted it to the large committee, who unani-
mously agreed to report it to the Convention.
The paper was read to the Convention by Dr. Atlee, chair-
man of the committee, and listened to with the profoundest
interest.
* * * * * * * #•# *
The reading of the paper was followed by a discussion
which lasted several hours. A member of the Society of
Friends moved its immediate adoption. " We have," he said,
"all given our assent; every heart here responds to it. It is
a doctrine of Friends that these strong and deep impressions
should be heeded." The Convention, nevertheless, deemed it
important to go over the Declaration carefully, paragraph by
paragraph. During the discussion one of the spectators asked
leave to say a few words. A beautiful and graceful woman,
in the prime of life, with her face beneath her plain cap as
finely intellectual as that of Madame Roland, offered some
wise and valuable suggestions, in a clear, sweet voice, the charm
of which I have never forgotten.
It was Lucretia Mott, of Philadelphia. The President
courteously thanked her, and encouraged her to take a part in
the discussion. On the morning of the last day of our session,
the Declaration, with its few verbal amendments, carefully
engrossed on parchment, was brought before the Convention.
Samuel J. May rose to read it for the last time. His sweet,
persuasive voice faltered with the intensity of his emotions as
he repeated the solemn pledges of the concluding paragraphs.
After a season of silence, David Thurston, of Maine, rose, as
his name was called by one of the Secretaries, and affixed his
name to the document. One after another passed up to the
platform, signed, and retired in silence. All felt the deep
responsibility of the occasion ; the shadow and forecast of a
life-long struggle rested upon every countenance.
14
Our work as a Convention was now done. President Green
arose to make the concluding address. The circumstances
under which it was uttered may have lent it an impressiveness
not its own f but as I now recall it it seems to me the most
powerful and eloquent 3peech to which I have ever listened,
lie passed in review the work that had been done, the Consti-
tution of the new society, the Declaration of Sentiments, and
the union and earnestness which had marked the proceedings.
His closing words will never be forgotten bv those who
heard them:
"Brethren, it has been good to be here. In this hallowed
atmosphere I have been revived and refreshed. This brief
interview has more than repaid for all that I have ever suffered.
I have here met congenial minds ; I have rejoiced in sympa-
thies delightful to the soul. Heart has beat responsive to
heart, and the holy work of seeking to benefit the outraged
and despised has proved the most blessed enjoyment.
"But now we must retire from these balmy influences, and
breathe another atmosphere. The chill hoar-frost will be upon
us. The storm and tempest will rise, and the waves of perse-
cution will dash against our souls. Let us be prepared for the
worst. Let us fasten ourselves to the throne of God as with
hooks of steel. If we cling not to Him, our names to that
document will be but as dust. ,
"Let us covet no applause; indulge in no spirit of vain
boasting. Let us be assured that our only hope in grappling
with the bony monster is in an Arm that is stronger than ours.
Let us fix our gaze on God, and walk in the light of his counte-
nance. If our cause be just — and we know it is — his omnipo-
tence is pledged to its triumph. Let this cause be entwined
around the very fibres of our hearts. Let our hearts grow to
it, so that nothing but death can sever the bond."
He ceased, and then, amidst a silence only broken by the
deep-drawn breath of emotion in the assembly, lifted up his
voice in a prayer to Almighty God, full of fervor and feeling,
imploring his blessing and sanctification upon the convention
15
and its labors. And with the solemnity of this supplication
on our hearts, we clasped hands in farewell; and went forth,
each man to his place of duty, not knowing the thing that
should befall us, as individuals, but with confidence never
shaken by abuse and persecution, in .the certain triumph of
our cause.
The Chairman. — The Declaration of Sentiments will now
be read.
DECLARATION OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY
CONVENTION.
Assembled in Philadelphia, December 4, 1833.
The Convention assembled in the city of Philadelphia to
organize a National Anti-Slavery Society, promptly seize the
opportunity to promulgate the following DECLARATION
OF SENTIMENTS, as cherished by them in relation to the
enslavement of one-sixth portion of the American people.
More than fifty-seven years have elapsed since a band of
patriots convened in this place, to devise measures for the de-
liverance of this country from a foreign yoke. The corner-
stone upon which they founded the Temple or Freedom was
broadly this — " that all men are created equal ; that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that
among these are life, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of happi-
ness." At the sound of their trumpet-call, three millions of
people rose up as tfrom the sleep of death, and rushed to the
strife of blood ; deeming it more glorious to die instantly as
freemen, than desirable to live one hour as slaves. They were
few in number — poor in resources ; but the honest conviction
that Truth, Justice, and Right were on their side, made
them invincible.
We have met together for the achievement of an enterprise,
without which, that of our fathers is incomplete ; and which,
for its magnitude, solemnity, and probable results upon the
16
destiny of the world, as far transcends theirs, as moral truth
does physical force.
In purity of motive, in earnestness of zeal, in decision of
purpose, in intrepidity of action, in steadfastness of faith, in
sincerity of spirit, we would not be inferior to them.
Their principles led them to wage war against their oppres-
sors, and to spill human blood like water, in order to be free.
Ours forbid the doing of evil that good mav come, and lead us
to reject, and to entreat the oppressed to reject, the use of all
carnal weapons, for deliverance from bondage ; relying solely
upon those which are spiritual, and mighty through God to
the pulling down of strong holds.
Their measures were physical resistance — the marshalling
in arms — the hostile array — the mortal encounter. Ours shall
be such only as the opposition of moral purity to moral cor-
ruption— the destruction of error by the potency of truth — the
overthrow of prejudice by the power of love — and the abolition
of slavery by the spirit of repentance.
Their grievances, great as they were, were trilling in com-
parison with the wrongs and sufferings of those for whom we
plead. Our fathers were never slaves — never bought and sold
like cattle — never shut out from the light of knowledge and
religion — never subjected to the lash of brutal task-masters.
But those, for whose emancipation we are striving — consti-
tuting at the present time at least one-sixth part of our
countrymen — are recognized by the law, and treated by their
fellow-beings as marketable commodities — as goods and chat-
tels — as brute beasts; are plundered daily of the fruits of
their toil without redress; really enjoying no constitutional
nor legal protection from licentious and murderous outrages
upon their persons; are ruthlessly torn asunder — the tender
babe from the arms of its frantic mother — the heart-broken
wife from her weeping husband — at the caprice or pleasure
of irresponsible tyrants. For the crime of having a dark
complexion, they suffer the pangs of hunger, the infliction of
stripes, and the ignominity of brutal servitude. They are kept
17
in heathenish darkness by laws expressly enacted to make
their instruction a criminal offence.
These are the prominent circumstances in the condition of
more than two millions of our people, the proof of which may
be found in thousands of indisputable facts, and in the laws of
the slave-holding States.
Hence we maintain — That in view of the civil and religious
privileges of this nation, the guilt of its oppression is un-
equalled by any other on the face of the earth ; and, therefore,
that it is bound to repent instantly, to undo the heavy burden,
to break every yoke, and to let the oppressed go free.
We further maintain — That no man has a right to enslave
or imbrute his brother — to hold or acknowledge him, for one
moment, as a piece of merchandise — to keep back his hire by
fraud — or to brutalize his mind by denying him the means of
intellectual, social, and moral improvement.
The right to enjoy liberty is inalienable. To invade it, is
to usurp the prerogative of Jehovah. Every man has a right
to his own body — to the products of his own labor — to the
protection of law — and to the common advantages of society.
It is piracy to buy or steal a native African, and subject him
to servitude. Surely the sin is as great to enslave an American
as an African.
Therefore we believe and affirm — That there is no difference,
in principle, between the African slave trade and American
slavery — That every American citizen, who retains a human
being in involuntary bondage, as his property, is [according to
Scripture*] a man stealer — That the slaves ought instantly
to be set free, and brought under the protection of law — That
if they had lived from the time of Pharaoh down to the
present period, and had been entailed through successive
generations, their right to be free could never have been
alienated, but their claims would have constantly risen in
solemnity — That all those laws which are now in force, ad-
mitting the right of slavery, are therefore before God utterly
* Exodus XXI., 16 — Deuteronomy XXIV., 7.
18
null and void; being an audacious usurpation of the Divine
prerogative, a daring infringement on the law of Nature, a
base overthrow of the very foundations of the social compact,
a complete extinction of all the relations, endearments, and
obligations of mankind, and a presumptuous transgression of
all the holy commandments — and that therefore they ought to
be instantly abrogated.
We further believe and affirm — That all persons of color
who possess the qualifications which are demanded of others,
ought to be admitted forthwith to the enjoyment of the same
privileges, and the exercise of the same prerogatives, as others
— That the paths of preferment, of wealth, and of intelligence
should be opened as widely to them as to persons of a white
complexion.
We maintain that no compensation should be given to the
planters emancipating their slaves — Because it would be a
surrender of the great fundamental principle, that man cannot
hold property in man — Because Slavery is a crime, and
THEREFORE IT IS NOT AN ARTICLE TO RE SOLD — Because the
holders of slaves are not the just proprietors of what they
claim ; freeing the slaves is not depriving them of property, but
restoring it to its right owners ; it is not wronging the master,
but righting the slave — restoring him to himself — Because
immediate and general emancipation would only destroy nomi-
nal, not real property ; it would not amputate a limb or break
a bone of the slaves, but by infusing motives into their breasts
would make them doubly valuable to the masters as free
laborers ; and, because, if compensation is to be given at all,
it should be given to the outraged and guiltless slaves, and not
to those who have plundered and abused them.
We regard, as delusive, cruel and dangerous, any scheme of
expatriation which pretends to aid, either directly or indirectly,
in the emancipation of the slaves, or to be a substitute for the
immediate and total abolition of slavery.
We fully and unanimously recognize the sovereignty of each
State, to legislate exclusively on the subject of slavery which
19
is tolerated within its limits ; we concede that Congress, under
the present national compact, has no right to interfere with any
of the slave States, in relation to this momentous subject.
But we maintain that Congress has a right, and is solemnly
bound to suppress the domestic slave trade between the several
States, and to abolish slavery in those portions of our territory
which the Constitution has placed under its exclusive jurisdic-
tion.
We also maintain that there are, at the present time, the
highest obligations resting upon the people of the free States,
to remove slavery by moral and political action, as prescribed
in the Constitution of the United States. They are now living
under a pledge of their tremendous physical force to fasten the
galling fetters of tyranny upon the limbs of millions in the
Southern States ; they are liable to be called at any moment
to suppress a general insurrection of the slaves; they authorize
the slave owner to vote for three-fifths of his slaves as property,
and thus enable him to perpetuate his oppression ; they sup-
port a standing army at the south for its protection ; and they
seize the slave who has escaped into their territories, and send
him back to be tortured by an enraged master or a brutal
driver. This relation to slavery is criminal and full of danger;
IT MUST BE BROKEN UP.
These are our views and principles — these, our designs
and measures. With entire confidence in the over-ruling
justice of God, we plant ourselves upon the Declaration of
our Independence and the truths of Divine Revelation as upon
the EVERLASTING ROCK.
We shall organize Anti-Slavery Societies, if possible, in
every city, town, and village in our land.
We shall send forth Agents to lift up the voice of remon-
strance, of warning, of entreaty, and of rebuke.
We shall circulate, unsparingly and extensively, anti slavery
tracts and periodicals.
We shall enlist the pulpit and the press in the cauBe of the
suffering and the dumb.
•20
We shall aim at a purification of the churches from all
participation in the guilt of slavery.
We shall encourage the labor of the freemen rather than
that of the slaves, by giving a preference to their productions :
and
We shall spare no exertions nor means to bring the whole
nation to a speedy repentance.
Our trust for victory is solely in God. We may be person-
ally defeated, but our principles never. Truth, Justice,
Reason, Humanity, must and will gloriously triumph. Al-
ready a host is coming up to the help of the Lord against the
mighty, and the prospect before us is full of encouragement.
Submitting this ^DECLARATION to the candid examina-
tion of the people of this country, and of the friends of
liberty throughout the world, we hereby affix our signatures
to it ; pledging ourselves that, under the guidance and by the
help of Almighty God, we will do all that in us lies, consist-
ently with this Declaration of our principles, to overthrow the
most execrable system of slavery, that has ever been witnessed
upon earth — to deliver our land from its deadliest curse —
to wipe out the foulest stain which rests upon our national
escutcheon — and to secure to the colored population of the
United States all the rights and privileges which belong to
them as men, and as Americans — come what may to our per-
son, our interests, or our reputations — whether we live to wit-
ness the triumph of liberty, justice, and humanity, or
perish ultimately as martyrs in this great, benevolent, and
holy cause. Done in Philadelphia, this sixth day of December,
A. D. 1833.
Maine. New York.
DAVID THURSTON, BERIAH GREEN, Jr.,
NATHAN WINSLOW, LEWIS TAPPAN,
JOSEPH SOUTHWICK, JOHN RANKIN,
JAMES FREDERIC OTIS, WILLIAM GREEN, Jr.,
ISAAC WINSLOW. ABRAHAM L. COX,
WILLIAM GOODELL,
New Hampshire. ELIZUR WRIGHT, Jr.,
DVVID CAMPBELL, CHARLES W. DENISON,
JOHN FROST.
21
ORSON S.
Vermont.
MURRAY.
Massachusetts.
DANIEL S. SOUTHMAYI),
EFFINGHAM L. CAPRON,
JOSHUA COFFIN,
AMOS A. PHELPS,
JOHN G. WHITTIEE,
HORACE P. WAKEFIELD,
JAMES G. BARBADOES,
DAVID T. KIMBALL, Jr,
DANIEL E. JEWETT,
JOHN R. CAMBELL,
NATHANIEL SOUTHARD,
ARNOLD BUFFUM,
WILLIAM L. GARRISON,
Rhode Island.
JOHN PRENTICE,
GEORGE W. BENSON,
RAY POTTER.
Connecticut
SAMUEL J. MAY,
ALPHEUS KINGSLEY,
EDWIN A. STILLMAN,
SIMEON S. JOCELYN,
ROBERT B. HALL.
Neic Jersey.
JONATHAN PARK HURST,
CHALKLEY GILLINGHAM,
JOHN McCULLOUGII,
JAMES WHITE.
Pennsylvania.
EVAN LEWIS,
EDWIN A. ATLEE,
ROBERT PURVIS,
JAS. McCRUMMILL,
THOMAS SHIPLEY,
BARTH'W FUSSELL,
DAVID JONES,
ENOCH MACK,
JAMES MILLER McKIM,
AARON VICKERS,
JAMES LOUGHEAD,
EDWIN P. ATLEE,
THOMAS WHITSON,
JOHN R. SLEEPER,
JOHN SHARP, Jr.
JAMES MOTT.
Ohio.
JOHN M. STERLING,
MTLTON SUTLIFF,
LEVI SUTLIFF.
At the close of the reading Rev. Mil. Spear arose, and
approached a small walnut table, upon which stood a large
inlaid inkstand, and said :
This is the inkstand which the friends used when they signed
the Declaration of Sentiments, to which we have just listened.
This is the table upon which# they wrote. These have been
preserved until the present hour as relics of the past. And I
want to simply add in respect to one of those signers, John M.
Sterling, of Ohio, that he 'told me that when he left Ohio, to
come here to attend that meeting, as he got in the sta^e at his
own home, his wife said to him, " I hope you will not come
±2
back until you have accomplished the object of your mission.''
That man, in that Convention, when money was needed, and
persons were giving various sums, laid five hundred dollars on
this table.
The Chairman. — You will now be addressed by a life-long
abolitionist.
Mary Grew. — Fifty years ago, two millions of the inhabi-
tants of these United States were held in personal slavery by
their fellow-countrymen. They were legally regarded and
treated as " chattels personal, to all intents, purposes, and
constructions whatsoever." The State governments gave
them over to the irresponsible power of those who claimed to
be their owners ; and the United States government inter-
fered only to restore them to such control when they fled from
it. The American church and the American people slum-
bered over this terrible fact ; if they heard, did not heed,
the protests which were occasionally uttered by earnest souls
against this gigantic system of oppression.
Fifty years ago to-day, William Lloyd Garrison and a few
coadjutors met in this city to organize a national enterprise
against this national injustice; and they founded it upon
the principle that slaveholding is sin ; and that, consequently,
immediate emancipation was the right of the slave, and the
duty of the master. Herein resided their power. They pro-
posed no compromise with moral evil ; they consented to none.
They demanded, without wavering, from the hour of the or-
ganization of the American Anti-Slavery Society, until the
hour of final victory, absolute justice for the slave.
And by that faith in Right they conquered; and to-day we
meet here to look across the half century, to remember the
stern conflict, the fellowship of suffering with those in bonds,
the ever-reviving hope, the never-dying faith ; and, at the
close of our more than thirty years war, the victory and song
of jubilee.
23
To those of us who arc old enough to have passed through
it, the warfare seemed long, while the two millions of slaves
were increasing to six millions ; and so desperate became the
conflict that some of us, in its later years, scarcely expected to
see the victory ; though we never doubted that it would come,
if not to us, to our successors. But it came, " in fulness of
power," while William Lloyd Garrison and the larger number
of his early coadjutors were here to welcome and rejoice in it.
In the twenty years which have since ejapsed they have
rapidly followed one another to " the silent land ; " and to-day
a very few of us are left who, fifty years ago, enrolled our
names among the members of the American Anti-slavery
Society and its auxiliaries. Time would fail us to recount the
names of those who fell by our side in the conflict ; who labored
well, "enduring hardness as good soldiers," faithful unto
death. Their record is on high. To us who remain, how far
away seem the gcenes which we recall of persecution, of burn-
ing halls dedicated to freedom ; of mobs assaulting lawful
assemblies of men and women, or howling through the streets
of cities threatening destruction to the dwellings of abolitionists,
to which municipal government gave no protection.
How the darkness of that period was dissipated in the bright-
ness of the emancipation morning ! The present generation,
born in this later and better day of America's true freedom,
cannot know what it was to be an abolitionist in the countrv's
" Martyr Age." "We to whom it was given to know this, who
in "the rapture of the strife" forgot the pain; who in the
faith of final victory recked little of temporary defeat; who
out of weakness were made strong by the invincible might of
eternal truth and justice, thank God with all our hearts to day
for the privilege of sharing in the work of this great moral
revolution.
At its commencement probably none of us saw how great,
how arduous it was to be y for it was only by long experience
that we learned how far-reaching were the influences of the
system which we had undertaken to abolish ; how closely
24
and firmly it was intertwined with the political, ecclesiastical,
commercial and social life of the nation. Least of all did we
anticipate the opposition which we encountered from churches
nnd other religious organizations. Mr. Garrison, when he
began his work, expected to receive their hearty cooperation ;
and many advocates of the slave's right to freedom were equally
surprised and disappointed when their ecclesiastical brethren
heard them with indifference, or denounced them as disturbers
of the ''peace of Z ion."
In a retrospect of our enterprise we must never forget that,
" faithful among the faithless," stood two religious denomina-
tions of this country, the Covenanters and the Free Will
Baptists. It shall be told as a memorial of them that they
never "bowed the knee to the dark spirit of slavery" ; and
that in them the abolitionists ever found fraternal sympathy
and efficient help ; and that in the most perilous times in this
city the church edifices of the Covenanters were freely offered
for Anti-slavery meetings ; and no threats of destruction by
nwin" mobs ever caused those doors to be closed.
Gradually, as in all moral revolutions, was the greatness of
the work revealed, and the outlook of the workers widened,
until at length they comprehended the opposition they had
awakened, and the task which they had assumed. Latent in
the heart of the American people there was a sense of justice,
a capability of sympathy with the victims of injustice, which
slowly awakened at the call of the abolitionists ; and, as the
years rolled on, the Anti-Slavery host grew in numbers and
power until neither churches nor legislatures could afford to
ignore or despise it; and the American Congress became, for a
season, an Anti-Slavery debating society.
Created by the moral movement against slavery, a political
party sprang into existence to aid the work ; as political parties
always do in this country, when the hour strikes the signal for
probable success. The prophet voice, the martyr death, of John
Brown shook the nation to its centre ; and the time was at hand
when the uprising of the South for the defence of the system of
25
slavery scaled its doom, and ushered in the hour of the procla-
mation of "Liberty throughout all the land, to all the inhabi-
tants thereof."
The specific work of the American Anti-Slavery enterprise
has been accomplished. Its lessons remain for instruction to
the generations to come. God grant that those lessons may be
heeded; that men may learn the great truth, that injustice
cannot prosper; that he who fastens a chain upon his brother
fetters himself thereby; that though the footsteps of Nemesis
may be slow, they are sure, because the Lord God Omnipotent
reigneth.
The Chairman. — I have the pleasure of presenting one
who considers it perchance his misfortune not to have been
born early enough to report for service at the beginning of the
struggle ; but who came in good time to join in the rout of
the enemy.
Rev. Charles G. Ames. — In entering the hall to-day I
brushed against a colored man, wearing the blue coat and
bright buttons of the Philadelphia Police. He seemed the
summing up of the history of these fifty years. He is doubtless
a descendant of some who fifty years ago were not regarded as
having many rights which the average Philadelphian was bound
to respect. Now he stands there as the representative of a
revolution which, in theory at least, has secured to every
colored man in the country the same privileges under the
government, and the same rights over it, which were once
exercised only by the race which set up the auction-block and
swung the lash.
I do not quite like to have the chairman make me appear so
modern. When the Philadelphia meeting was held in 1833,
I was already five years old, — a pin-feather fledgling in a nest
of New Hampshire democrats. How well I remember when
a deputy sheriff in our county — an uncle of mine — arrested a
minister for disturbing the pe,£ce by preaching and praying
26
against slavery. Occasional incidents of that sort were causing
a great agitation among our hill-country farmers ; and the din
and racket reached the ears of a small boy, who easily took up
the prejudices of his seniors. At twelve, I tied my handker-
chief to a stick and hurrahed for Van Buren. But at sixteen,
I grieved because I could not vote for James G. Birney, the
first abolition candidate for President, a man who had set his
own slaves free.
Not much later, I found myself a minister in that denomi-
nation of Free Baptists to which Miss Grew has just paid a
handsome tribute for its outspoken faithfulness to the cause of
the slave. Sometimes our zeal may have run ahead of our
knowledge, but we certainly put our anti-slavery into our
religion, or found it there ; and then we put our religion into
our pulpit-work and our politics. For twenty years, in the
east and in the west, through habitual attendance at anti-slavery
meetings, I grew familiar with the faces and voices and spirit
of many of the heroes of freedom ; and especially of those men
and women whose names we pronounce to-day with grateful
reverence. But I did not mean that the chairman's kind
introduction should lead me into personal reminiscences.
One aspect of the anti-slavery movement is full of instruc-
tion : it was a product and outpouring of genuine sentiment, —
it sprang out of the deep heart of humanity. Behind all argu-
ment there was a mighty push and urgency of feeling and con-
viction, finding utterance in aphorisms and eloquence that
seemed inspired. From the strong pulsing life of God in the
soul of man proceeded that noble agitation which in due time
summed up its proud result by writing universal liberty in the
nation's charter as unalterable law. Let us never be ashamed
that we have hearts as well as heads ; let us respect pure senti-
ment as a fountain of life and truth and power.
This brings up the fact that those brave-hearted men and
women had no private or selfish interest to serve by the costly
outlay of their efforts. Their toil and sacrifices were not
stimulated or encouraged by any prospect or desire of advantage
27
to themselves. They obeyed the sacred command; "Open
thy mouth for the dumb ; and remember those in bonds as
bound with them." Indeed the Bible was their armory.
Never men lived who felt more surely authorized to appeal to
the Eternal, and speak in His name. Never was there a man
who knew better than Garrison how to take the words of old
Hebrew prophets and make them reverberate like peals of
thunder through the land. The abolitionists stood stoutly on
the affirmation that slavery is wrong — a sin against God and
man ; and they thoroughly identified themselves with its
victims, the down-trodden and those who had no helper.
And they did this in the days when it was costly ; for on
the side of the oppressor there was power — the power of
church and state, of politics and trade, of public opinion and
private interest.
This is the large service done by the American abolitionists.
They created, or roused into healthy activity, the Northern
conscience. This aroused conscience became a barrier against
the extension of slavery ; and against that barrier the maddened
slave-power at last dashed itself to pieces. There were indeed
open questions of constitutional power to deal with slavery ;
but Northern voters were at least compelled to admit that
they could not be innocent ; that they must make themselves
responsible for all the wrongs of slavery, unless they used both
their moral and their political power against it.
The abolitionists incessantly exclaimed, " Slavery is wrong !
Slavery is sinful ! Slavery is the sum of all villainies !" Men
who were tired of hearing this moral clamor, and who half-
hated the rough-voiced prophets, were yet obliged to do some
honest thinking; reason and conscience took sides with the
abolitionists; for no man could verify his own title to "life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," unless he conceded the
equal right of every negro in the South.
It was a grand service rendered to this nation. The whole
population was put to school, and compelled to study first
principles — the principles of natural and equal rights. And
as the conflict went on, and the slave-power demanded new
guarantees, men saw and felt that in consenting to fasten one
end of the chain to the negro they were fastening the other
end to their own necks, and to the necks of their children.
For the situation did not improve ; it rather grew worse, and
the abolitionists were angrily blamed for that.
The great debate brought out a new class of men, who had
studied our national history more closely. They reinforced
the anti-slavery movement by convicting the nation of apostasy
from the doctrines of its fathers and founders. It was shown
that the great men who set up this government were all aboli-
tionists, however inconsistent. The first five Presidents all
put themselves on record as opposed to slavery.
Washington had said, "It is among my first wishes to see
some plan adopted by which slavery can be abolished by law."
John Adams had said, "To consent to slavery is a sacri-
legious breach of trust."
Jefferson had said, " I tremble for my country when I reflect
that God is just, and that his justice cannot sleep forever.
The love of justice and the love of country plead equally the
cause of the negroes. * * * This is a conflict of justice
with avarice and oppression."
Madison had said, "I think it wrong to admit into that
instrument [the Constitution] the idea of property in man.
* * * "\ye }iave seen the mere distinction of color made, in
the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most
oppressive domination ever exercised by man over man."
Monroe had said, "Slavery has preyed upon the very vitals
of the Union, and has been prejudicial to all the States in
which it has existed."
John Jay, our first Chief Justice, had said, "Slavery is
iniquity, * * * a sin of crimson dye. * * * Our
prayers to heaven will be impious until we abolish it." In
these views concurred Justice Iredell, of North Carolina ;
Chancellor Livingston, of New York ; Benjamin Franklin,
29
President of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, and Alexander
Hamilton, -who declared the negroes "free by the law of
God."
Was it not full proof of an apostasy when neither of the
great parties in the United States dared nominate any candi-
date known to hold or avow the opinions once freely expressed
by the great men whom the young republic delighted to honor?
All these facts came up in judgment : the American people
were convicted, and millions were alarmed, as if the ship of
state had fallen into the possession of pirates. It was a
mighty and solemn arraignment ; the arraignment of church
and state before the bar of outraged righteousness.
It cannot be claimed that the abolitionists were infallible,
or exempt from ordinary human infirmities. They were often
bitter and extravagant in language, and some of them were
fanatical in methods ; but their zeal was all for the right, and
their violence was all against the wrong. They were ruled by
that spirit to which the whole Protestant world is just now
giving honor. Martin Luther, facing the angry powers of
Christendom, said : "Here I stand; I cannot do other; God
help me!" William Lloyd Garrison was no whit less coura-
geous and faithful; and he impersonated the whole anti-slavery
movement when he said : " I will not equivocate ; I will not
excuse; I will not retreat a single inch; and I will be heard!"
The meeting^o-day is one of the largest ever assembled in
America; for is not this little, visible company surrounded with
" a great cloud of witnesses ?" The departed have not departed ;
they are with us, we are with them. They rejoice with us
that the sin and shame have been washed out, and that the
foundations of our national life have been relaid in the immovable
principles of righteousness. We are in the presence of those
who have watched as guardian angels over our dear land through
all the changes of its history. The faithful ones who have
borne their unwelcome testimony until flesh and heart were
faint, do they not share our jubilee ? All who have suffered
30
and died, that the nation might be free and strong and united,
do they not hover above and around ?
" From the ghastly fields of Shiloh
Muster the phantom bands ;
From Virginia's swamps and Death's white camps
On the Carolina sands;
From Fredericksburg and Gettysburg
I see them gathering fast ;
And up from Manassas what is that passes —
Like thin clouds in the blast?
"From the Wilderness, where blanches
The nameless skeleton ;
From Vicksburg's slaughter and red-streaked water,
And the trenches of Donelson ;
From the cruel, cruel prisons «*"*'
Where their bodies pined away ;
From groaning decks and sunken wrecks,
They gather with us to-day."
And let us not take for granted the absence of those who
laid down their lives on the other side. Surely no inhabitants
of the universe have more reason to rejoice to-day than those
honestly-misguided multitudes who died for the "Lost Cause"
of trying to make slavery the corner-stone of a new nation. I
say, therefore, this assembly is as unanimous as it is vast.
Along with the living and the dead it may well include the
uncounted population of the future for whom this land has
been rescued to liberty, equality, and fraternity.
And so, in the name of those who dared to speak the for-
bidden truth ; in the name of those who toiled with speech and
pen and type for the cause of the despised, sowing with tears,
that others might reap with joy ; in the name of those anti-
slavery women who gathered in the face of howling mobs,
thanking God that " while there were many to molest, there
were none that could make afraid;" in the name of those
tender, yet stout-hearted ones, who pointed the fugitive to the
North Star, and put their own lives as a shield between him
31
and the pursuing blood-hounds of the law ; in the name of all
who at any time, or in any land, have defended the rights
which are universal ; in the name of
"All who wrought for liberty,
When 'twas treason to be free;"
and in the name of that great Son of Man who proves him-
self the Son of God by leading the emancipation of the race
from every form of bondage, we join in celebrating the mem-
ory of an event which is a part of the best history of the
world's progress.
The Chairman. — Before we adjourn we shall have a few
words from our honored friend Rev. Dr. Furness.
Rev. Dr. Furness. — I always considered myself an eleventh
hour man. The Society was formed in '83. I should think*
it was six years afterwards, that after wrestling with the truth,
it then became too strong for me, and I committed myself to
the cause. It was a good experience. I felt then as if I had
experienced religion for the first time ; and I learned by that
long struggle to have patience with others. I did not join The
American Anti-Slavery Society, because I considered myself,
as a minister of the, Christian church, in the light of the presi-
dent ex-officio of an Anti-Slavery Society, and I was bound to
bring its members to do their duty. I saw that the great
wrong was infinitely worse for those who inflict it than for
those who endure it, that it was by far a greater curse upon the
white race than the black, and so I believed that I was work-
ing for the souls of my own flock. We have a generation
now springing up and voting, and in whose hands is the power
of the nation, who know hardly anything of the thirty years'
war of opinion which preceded the great crisis. Now there
is nothing more useful to any one age, than to be thoroughly
acquainted with the history of the age that preceded it.
But unfortunately that history cannot be written for a century
32
or more to come. I do not wish to be political in any remarks
that I may make, but I cannot help thinking that if the his-
tory of the thirty years before the war was familiar to our
young people, the voting now going on would be somewhat
different. I am a Republican because I am a Democrat. If
this nation is to be governed by a Democracy, it must be a
Democracy with Republican principles. We ought to have
our people instructed in the history of our own nation.
Charles Lamb says he does not think public events are of
much value except as they furnish material for dramas ; but I
think there has hardly been a page of the history of the war
more stirring, more full of poetic and dramatic power, than
the history of this Society thirty years before the war.
Mary Grew. — Dr. Furness has said that he was not a
member of the Anti-Slavery Society. I new?- knew whether
or not his name was on its roll ; but this I know, that he him-
self was of it; that on our platforms, in our meetings, with
mobs howling around and inside the house, and threatening
all manner of evil, he always stood by our side with his strong
word, and was one of us.
The Chairman. — Susan B. Anthony; no introduction is
needed.
SUSAN B. Anthony. — Mr. President and Friends; I feel
that I have nothing to add to all the good words that have
been uttered here this morning, but simply to say to you, that
I have just landed from the Old World, after a play-time of
almost a year. I heard of this meeting yesterday afternoon,
by telegraph, and took the train to come here ; but I can not
stay here, and I feel sorry, and I want you all to feel sorry
for me.
I want to say that my soul has been dipped into the deepest
sympathy with the early workers in this cause. I was not
\ one of the early members. I was only thirteen years old
33
when this Society was organized, which we have assembled to
celebrate to-day. It is a great while that the work has been
going forward. When my father moved to the city of
Rochester, N. Y., I there came to know the Abolitionists.
The first I met were Amy and Isaac Post, and Mary and
William Hallowell. I was there among the many friends and
the landmarks and pioneers of this movement in the city of
Rochester. Dr. Furness tells of being born again. I think
if anybody was ever born again, spiritually, that it was my-
self, under the teachings of Stephen and Abby Foster, who
first took me to an anti-slavery meeting. From that day for-
ward (it was in 1850) to the abolition of slavery, I worked,
with what little capacity I had, in cooperating with the Anti-
Slavery Society, and, as I wrote to Wendell Phillips, upon his
seventieth birthday, next to the approval of my conscience
and my God, was the approval of William Lloyd Garrison,
Wendell Phillips, and Lucretia Mott.
I feel that I am one of the children of that great anti-
slavery movement ; and I wish to say to the young people who
are here to-day, for what little there is of me, what little
work I have done for the public weal, I am indebted largely
to the education received in working for and with the American
Anti-Slavery Society. A young man once went to Dr. Fur-
ness and asked him where were the best elocutionary schools,
where he could get the best education to make a good speaker
of himself. Dr. Furness said : " Engage yourself as a
lecturer for the Anti-Slavery Society."
Now you would not expect me to sit down without saying
what every one of you is thinking ; that, though this Ameri-
can nation has put away the foul blot of slavery ; though this
government placed the ballot — the symbol of equality and
right — in the hands of the colored men of this nation, great
and grand as that work has been, still you would not expect
that I should stand here, or sit here, and be silent in regard to
a still-existing injustice, in the face of the great and funda-
mental principle of equality and rights to all. All men, native
34
and foreign, of all complexions and nationalities, of all grades
of education and of wealth, or of ignorance or poverty, every
man outside of States prison or lunatic- asylum, wears upon his
head the crown of citizenship — the symbol of equality ; but
the women of this republic, one-half of the entire people, are
yet left outside. And I want to say this to the young people
here to-day : Do not think the work is all done when the mon-
strous wrong of slavery is blotted out ; but strive to make the
American people see and feel the monstrous injustice that is
being done to one-half of the people of this republic in with-
holding from them their inalienable right to a voice in the gov-
ernment and in the making of the laws they are bound to
obey. I think I should not have slept to-night if I had not
said so much to vou.
A Gentleman. — I notice there are no names of women
appended to the Declaration of Sentiments at the Convention ;
although I understand that some were there and took an active
interest in the proceedings. Will some one explain this?
Miss Anthony. — Lucretia Mott was there and suggested
CO
an amendment to that Declaration ; but when they came to
write their names, not a man or woman of them ever thought
it would be possible for a woman to sign such a document.
Woman had not been discovered fifty years ago. I am mak-
ing the discovery to-day ; and that is what I want all of you
to think over at home. Woman everywhere, in church, in
State, in schools, and colleges, everywhere, is yet to be recog-
nized, and her opinion counted as equal to that of man.
The Chairman. — With the permission of Miss Anthony, I
would say in regard to the women who were present at that
Convention, and who contributed very much to its interest,
that many suggestions were made by them. The amendment
to the Declaration, by Mrs. Lucretia Mott, I distinctly recol-
lect. When the sentence was read in which we declare that
" we may be personally defeated, but our principles never can
be;" she rose in her place, and asked that the words, "can
be," should be omitted, which was agreed to, and then the
sentence read, " we may be personally defeated, but our prin-
ciples never."
The Morning Session wa« closed, and the Meeting adjourned
to lh o'clock, P. M.
EVENING SESSION.
The Chairmax. — I have the pleasure of presenting to you
one of the survivors of the Convention, and signers of the
Declaration of Sentiments, which you heard here this morning.
Elizur Wright. — Friends of Humanity, old and young ;
amidst the remorseless rush of the present, it is well, occa-
sionally, to look back at the past. We may thus ascertain
whether on the whole, the world is growing better or not :
whether human society is, on the whole, happier, more hopeful,
less brutal, worthier to be at the head, as it has long considered
itself to be, of the infinite life procession in water, earth and
air of this modest planet, so orderly holding its place in the
cloudless harmony of greater and lesser stars. The oldest of
us can not look back by personal memory, much more than
fifty years. But even in that short time, what triumph over
prejudice, oppression, and the brutal ferocity of man towards
man ! What actual demonstration that honesty is the best
policy, that the golden rule is the best rule for the investment
of wealth!
But Oh ! at what cost ! needless cost, of blood and tears.
Let me, as one of the least of the immediate abolitionists
who met in this city fifty years ago, picture to you that meet-
inff. This citv was where the Declaration of American Inde-
pendence was drawn up and signed ; that utterly abolition
document. It had but a partial effect in making America a
nation distinct from the mother country, and free from the
tyranny under which she groaned. It lay under these States
like a dormant charge of dynamite, waiting for a spark or a
blow. Here, under the lead of the immortal Franklin, had
been from the days of the Revolution, a society looking to the
ultimate abolition of slavery by a gradual process. In spite
(36)
37
of it, the actual process was proceeding in the wrong direction ;
when at last, by an individual whose name will not die, was
struck out the spark immediate, in 1829. It caught in some
kindred spirits in this city, in New York, in Boston, in the
wilderness beyond the mountains. By December, 1833, it
was agreed by all that the movement was ripe for a national
organization, and that the birthplace of the Declaration of
Independence was the right place for its birth. Self-elected,
or I might perhaps better say, heaven-elected, delegates met
here to the number of sixty or more. They were from nine
States. Some came on foot, some by stage coach, none by
rail.
The first question was who shall be President of the new
organization. The oldest and wisest of the new movement
conceded that The American Anti-Slavery Society, which was
to be, should honor itself and the past by electing the foremost
member of the old Pennsylvania Abolition Society. Would
he accept, was the question. A committee was appointed to
Avait upon him and some others. They reported that in every
instance the office was courteously declined. A suggestion
was then made by a member of the Convention that the organi-
zation should be deferred until the country should be riper
for it.
There were a few ladies present, though not considered as
delegates. The eye of the Chairman, Beriah Green, President
of Oneida Institute, of "Whitesboro, New York, caught.the form
of one of them rising from her seat as if to speak. He welcomed
her to the floor. It was a miracle to most of the delegates, who
had never heard a woman speak in public before. The manner of
that speech is indescribable. The effect was like that of an
electric light in the Mammoth Cave. It made men of us. It
annihilated doubt and fear. The Convention organized The
American Anti-Slavery Society on the spot; unanimously elect-
ing for President Arthur Tappan, of New York; the man who
had dared to release Garrison from a Baltimore jail. Thus it was
that Lucretia Mott became not only the mother of the National
38
Anti-Slavery Society, but of a far deeper and more vital
reform, till the full accomplishment of which this nation will
not deserve to be called a republic.
Our work in the distribution of printed information was
quite extensive, and I have records which show that over
750,000 printed documents, in various forms, were scattered
throughout the land.
As I was sitting in the office of the Anti-Slavery Society
one day, an unobtrusive-looking young man entered with a,
bundle under his arm. He said, " I have collected the senti-
ments of several hundred distinguished men and women in
regard to slavery ; and it is either in manuscript or print in
my bundle. And here in my wallet is seven hundred dollars
in bank bills. I wish your Society to make a little book of
this and circulate it as far as the money will go." We made
a book of that bundle and called it " The Liberty Bell," and
sold several editions of it.
It was only the small religious societies that ever gave us
any encouragement or support. The large ones opposed us
everywhere with the most violent denunciation ; and some did
not scruple to impute to us the very worst motives.
My brethren bore these persecutions with a spirit only
paralleled by your own Franklin, when he stood before the
Privy Council of England, and Wedderburn called him a
thief — the man who was afterwards Lord Chancellor. Their
patience under provocation, their bravery in defense of unpop-
ular principles, their abnegation of interest and self in a sub-
lime devotion to the cause of humanity, and their zeal at all
times have conferred upon posterity the boon of universal
liberty, which we have here assembled to celebrate.
The Chairman, alluding to a large wooden chest standing
on the front of the platform, said : There is a history connected
with this box, and I will call upon Mr. William Still to give
its history, as he had something to do with it through his
activity in The Underground Railroad.
39
William Still. Ladies and gentlemen: This box recalls
the days of slavery pretty vividly. I little thought, when this
chest arrived with a young woman in it, that after many years
had rolled by, I should stand in this place and exhibit and
describe something of its nature and the way it came from
Baltimore — Baltimore, where they used to weigh and measure
colored men. and sell them like merchandise. The young
woman was eighteen years old. Looking around her, and
feeling that her condition would be terrible if she remained in
that situation, she resolved to come north. Her mother sym-
pathized with her. and planned for her escape. It was not
very safe for a young woman to travel by night and day off
the Underground Railroad, guided by the North Star ; so they
felt that she would better travel by boat. But she could not
pav her passage and come like other passengers, because that
was contrary to law. She would be obliged, if she attempted
that, to ^o before a magistrate and be weighed and measured,
and then compelled to furnish bonds lest she might afterwards
be proved to have been a slave, and to have thus deprived her
master of a thousand or fifteen hundred dollars in property.
She was put into this client, and then on board the boat, as
a package of freight, and brought in that way. She was about
eighteen hours in coming, and suffered much in her reclining
attitude in the box ; but she thought liberty was worth suffering
for, and she endured it until reaching here.
When she arrived she was scarcely able to walk, but soon
revived in free air, and was very cheerful. She expressed her
gratitude in the strongest language, and manifested it in every
possible way. I thought, at the time, that it would be well to
have her likeness taken, and I sent for Mr. Rainer, $>neof our
friends who was in that business, and he took the picture of
her in this chest. ; and I preserved the chest and the likeness.
She went farther north on the Underground Railroad, and
shortly after, a young man to whom she was engaged, came on,
and thev were married in one of the cities of Western New
York.
40
This case was not quite a parallel with the escape of Henry
Brown, of Richmond, who wanted to come North, and could
think of no way except to have himself boxed up and sent by
Adams' Express. He knew of only one white man to whom
he could confide his wishes ; one who was called Red Boot
Smith. He acquiesced in the plan and believed it would be
successful. Brown was six feet tall and weighed two hun-
dred pounds. The box was three feet long, three feet high,
and two feet eight inches wide. This would allow him to sit
almost upright, with his legs bent. Red-Boot Smith, the man
to whom he had ventured to confide his plan, sent the box on
a dray to the steamboat, with a bill of freight, consigning it
to Win. H. Johnson, who was connected with our Philadelphia
office. I remember how I went to receive the box, at Broad
and Prime Street Station, at three o'clock in the morninc.
I felt all the while that the man would come dead, and I could
not imagine what would be the result if he should so come.
I waited until all the freight was delivered from the cars ; but
the box I came for was not there. I turned away somewhat
relieved, feeling that after all it might be best that we should
be disappointed. The next day I received a despatch, saying,
"Your case of goods is shipped, and will arrive to-morrow
morning." Mr. McKim thought that an attache of the office
should not go twice to inquire at the station ; and he con-
sulted Edward M. Davis, who was always ready to do a service
to this cause. There was a drayman who used to come
through our street several times a day ; Tind Mr. Davis told
him he wanted him to bring a case of goods from the southern
depot early the next morning. In due time the box was de-
livered to us. We greatly feared the man would be dead.
Mr. McKim made three raps on the box and asked, " All
right?" "All right," said Brown within.
I soon took the lid off, and he rose up, about as wet as if he
had come out of the river. He was hardly able to speak, but
said, " How do you do, gentlemen ?" Then he began to tell
what he had thought on the way. He said he had made up
41
his mind that if he got through safe he would sing a psalm •,
and he sang, " I waited patiently for the Lord," &c.
Fugitive slaves came frequently and in great numbers. I
preserved the records of them not because I thought the time
would ever come when I should be permitted to publish them,
but because it was interesting to me, and my family was
intimately connected with the Underground Railroad. The
book in which I afterwards published these records I called,
" The Underground Rail-Road."
The Chairman. — We have another worker here; and I
call upon Mr. Edwin II. Coates to give a history of this auc-
tion block, captured in Alexandria, Ya.
Edwin II. Coates. — I am glad to be here ; glad to mingle
with the men and women whom I have been working with for
half a century ; and I am glad to take many by the hand on
this occasion, which, possil.Jy, shall be the last time we shall
meet. I am one of the old Vigilance Committee, organized
for the purpose of rendering assistance to the fugitive slaves.
I believe, my friend, Robert Purvis, and myself, are the only
living members of that Committee. As regards the block you
see before you, it was once the property of Dr. Seltz, of this
city. He was a surgeon in one of the regiments at the time
our forces captured Alexandria. Being an abolitionist, he
went to the slave-pen in that city, with a number of his subor-
dinates, and carried away the implements, this one among
others ; and for a long time it was carried about by the Army
of the Totomac, as a block to chop meat upon. Finally, the
doctor presented it to me, requesting me to take charge of it.
As he remarked at the time, he was among the oldest of the
Underground workers. I have had the block in my posses-
sion nearly twenty years. I cannot tell ; I do not know ; no
one but the All-seeing One could tell, how much agony has
been endured on that block.
But there is one thing we do know, and we are glad to know
it ; the terrible evil has passed away.
42
The Chairman. — I have now the pleasure, ladies and gentle-
men, of introducing to you one of the earliest and most in-
defatigable workers in our anti-slavery cause, and who, in a
very important time in the history of that cause, represented
us ably in England.
Hon. James N. Buffum. Ladies and gentlemen: It is so
long since I have spoken on this subject that I don't know
whether I can interest you ; but if I do succeed it must be in
relating some of my reminiscences.
When I entered the cause I did not suppose I should ever
be called upon to speak, and I never should have done so, had
it not been for the outrageous prejudices against, and treat-
ment of, the colored race. I will try to give you an account
of some of my first efforts in that direction. We had to com-
bat great prejudices, and it was almost imposssible to find a
place where we would be allowed to speak. I remember the
first tour I made, when I attempted to take the field with a
vounji man who was on a vacation from one of the western
colleges. We went to Albany, and upon arriving there, found
that we could not procure a place to hold a meeting in, and
that no notices had been given by the press, who would not
assist us. I remember that we went and got some lar^e card
boards, lettered them, and one of our number had one in front
and one behind him, showing our advertisement ; and so we
went through the streets, notifying the people where we should
speak that evening. We had a good meeting.
In 1843 I went to New Bedford to attend an Anti-slavery
Convention — I was a young man and full of enthusiasm — and
there I found Frederick Douglass, rolling oil casks on the
wharves of New Bedford. By persuasion he went to one of
our meetings, and he spoke with such power and effect that
everybody was moved by it. lie had just come out of slavery,
a graduate from that great institution, and had his diploma'
written on his back with cowhide. We got him to come to
Nantucket, and he made five speeches with convincing power ;
43
and Mr. Garrison and myself thought it would be a good thing
if a man who had endured some of the penalties of slavery,
could go out and tell his story, and tell what slavery was.
And so he was engaged as an agent to come to Essex County,
and there begin his work. A tew weeks afterward he came to
my house with John A. Collins. We had to attend a Conven-
tion at Newburyport ; and I went over to the railway station
and procured three tickets, all alike, all one color, all one
destination, all the same price. Then we got into one of those
long cars, and there were but five people in the other end, and
we took our seats. Pretty soon the conductor came to collect
the tickets. Looking at Douglass, he said, "you must get
off; we don't have colored people here."
" Why are you going to put him off? " said I.
"Because he is colored, and the rules of this company don't
allow us to carry colored people."
" But his fare is paid; here is his ticket.''
" He will have to get off," said the conductor.
"Then turn me out, too;" said I. "How black must a
man be, or how white, to escape that calamity ? "
" He will have to get off," repeated the conductor.
"I have paid for this seat," said Douglass, "and I will
keep it."
He wTent out and got hisbrakeman, and came back to enforce
the orders of his company.
I had just got up from a bed of sickness, and was in no
condition to fight ; so I came out quietly, but when Collins
and Douglass came out, they brought three seats with them.
The conductor came up to me, and said, " You can get in,
if you want to."
"No; if you won't let Mr. Douglass ride, I won't ride; "
and I went across the road and got a horse that had no preju-
dices against color; and so we went to Newburyport.
When we got there we found one of the most enthusiastic
meetings. All the facts had gone on before us. We had a
44
regular inspiration, and for the first time in my life, I found
myself on the platform talking.
Two days after that I went into that same car, with the same
conductor, and on the first two seats at my left as I entered,
were three of the dirtiest sailors that I ever saw, with the
udiest monkey, standing right up straight, that God ever made.
There he was like any other gentleman. I could not speak
with the eloquence of a Phillips, but I could see a point. I
called to the conductor, who came to me, and I said, " How
is this ? Two days ago you put my friend Douglass out because
he was a link between a man and a monkey ; now you have
skipped the link and take the monkey himself." Upon this,
the sailor who had the animal, immediately said, " Young man,
you need not trouble yourself about my monkey ; I can pay for
him; " and he took a half dollar and offered it to the conductor
to pay his monkey's fare. The conductor looked non-plussed
for a while, and at last said, " Never mind about that, put it
up." And he put it up.
I went up to Faneuil Hall, and there offered a resolution of
this kind ; Resolved, that we petition our next legislature to
compel the corporations they have created, to grant to intelli-
gent and respectable colored people the same rights and privi-
leges that are enjoyed by dogs and monkeys.
*******
Afterwards the fugitive slave-law was passed, and Frederick
Douglass was not safe; and all his friends advised that he
should go across the Atlantic to find freedom under a mon-
archy. I accompanied him. We went to Dublin where we
had an audience four times as large as this, and the Lord
Mayor presided. Not only presided, but invited us to a ban-
quet, and invited all the city government officials, and distin-
guished citizens to meet us, because we were anti-slavery
men. Wherever we went, we were received with the greatest
consideration ; and I trust we did a good work. At any rate
they gave me the evidence of satisfaction before I returned.
I never in my life was so ashamed of my country, as when
4.5
I was in England. I went into the old Tower one day, and by
paying an extra shilling, I was allowed to see the Queen's
jewels. I had just come from Ireland where people were
starving and I said, " I thank God that I don't live in a
country, where one woman wears a million pounds on her
head, and another woman is starving because the potato crop
has failed." There was a soldier there who had been in the
battle of New Orleans, and turning to me, he said, " Young
man you may thank God for what you please, but I thank
God that I don't live in a country where all men are born free
and equal, and there are three million slaves."
I was recently invited to go to England again. If I were
not so old, and tied so strongly here, I would go over, and I
would tell them that no such taunts could be uttered against
us now. Now our flag floats, ever unstained by the institution
of slavery.
I remember one night Fred. Douglass had received a paper
from this country, which gave him the information that his
old master, Thomas Auld, of Baltimore, had given him away
to his brother Hugh ; and if he ever stepped foot on American
soil, he would have him put to work on a cotton plantation.
Douglass took that paper with him that evening, and after
speaking nearly an hour in his most eloquent strain, he took
it up and said to the audience ; " The very steamer which
brought my letters, has brought also a newspaper in which I
find that my old master, Thomas Auld, of Baltimore, has
given me away, and he readmit to them. Then he turned and
uttered one of the most grand and eloquent speeches that I
ever heard from his lips. He said, " Ladies and gentlemen
think of it; in that country where I was born, and where they
declare that all men are born free and equal, and are endowed
by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among them
those of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, there I was
a slave. There was no place where I could stand up and call
these hands, this head, my own. Wherever the American
46
flag floated, there I was a slave. I had to fly from the screech-
ing of the eagle, and take shelter in the lap of the lion."
I never saw such a demonstration as his words created. It
was an enthusiastic ovation. Finally the women of England
sent over to Baltimore and bought Frederick Douglass. They
would not allow him to come back here a slave ; and they
raised the money, paid it, and gave the deed of emancipation
to Frederick himself.
They talk about politicians being bought ; they say Daniel
Webster was bought by British gold. I never knew of but
one man being bought bv British gold — that man was Fred-
erick Douglass.
The Chairman. — I now have the pleasure of introducing
to you a former editor of the official organ of the American
Anti-Slavery Society.
Aaron M. Powell. — Ladies and gentlemen: It was not
my privilege, like that of the first speaker to-night, to be one
of the originators of the American Anti- Slavery Society; but
I do count it a privilege to have been, during the later years
of its existence, one of its lecturing agents ; and, later still,
its Corresponding Secretary and the editor of its organ, The
National Anti-Slavery Standard.
The other day I watched, passing down Broadway in my
city, the great procession which commemorated the Evacuation
Day ; thousands of soldiers in line, and, at the head of the pro-
cession, the President of the United States, and following him
the Governors of sundry of the States. Magnificent as was the
display, and great as was the significance of that occasion,
interpreted during the day so eloquently by George William
Curtis, I said to myself, " There is to be in Philadelphia a
semi-centennial celebration of an enterprise which the future
historian of this country (when we are far enough away from
it to see and discuss it dispassionately) will record as not
47
second but equal to any triumph in the history and progress
of mankind. ,
And to my mind, Mr. Chairman, the great significance of
this occasion is, that it illustrates the value of moral power as
against what the world estimates yet more highly, a military
spirit. Tor, beginning with the feebleness of which you have
heard through Mr. "NYhittier's account, confronted with such
opposition, you are able to trace in the history of the rise and
progress of this Society, a mighty power through the methods
adopted by Mr. Garrison and his co-workers in quickening
the conscience of the nation, until this odious system which
seemed to have fastened itself for all time, was at last loosened
in its hold ; and to-day, thank God ! not a slave breathes the
atmosphere of our land.
The moral method, then, is the thing which we are to keep
in mind as the grand moving power which characterized the
labors of the abolitionists who instituted the American Anti-
Slavery Society. The freed people of the nation, these
millions, were thrown suddenly from the position where it had
been a crime to teach them to read or write, where they were
held as chattels and treated as property. Never were a
people, so suddenly emancipated, with the responsibility of
citizenship thrown upon them, subjected to such a test. I
have not time now to review their experience since their
emancipation. It must suffice to say that, under all circum-
stances, it seems to me that they have vindicated their own
cause by the progress they hnve made. It was only the day
before yesterday, our New York journals chronicled, as an
item at a recent local election in South Carolina, that the
triumph of the movement to suppress the dram shops in that
State, was largely due to the efforts of the freedmen.
I believe the time will come when the freed people of this '
country will teach the people of the North profitable lessons.
The times are full of hope, but there are dangers to be avoided.
The one lesson of the hour is that there must be no retrograde
step ; that no party shall be permitted to give license to the
48
spirit of oppression and race-prejudice ; the prejudice which
rules out the Chinese on the Pacific coast; and only wants
encouragement to relegate colored men to an inferior place.
Each in his way must do all in his power to keep the public
opinion of the country up to a high moral level, sensitive to
the principles of justice and right upon which the American
Anti-Slavery Society was founded.
A great value of that Society is, also, in the help which it
gives as a precedent for workers in other directions. I had
the privilege of attending, at the Hague, an International
Conference for abolition of a wider slavery, whereim woman is
the victim ; and when I heard the eloquent speakers quoting
the example of Garrison and the American abolitionists, as an
assurance of the justice and humanity of their cause, I thanked
God that we had hail this lesson in this country, and that we
had been permitted to be a help to the people on the other side.
All who think and labor in our own country, and particularly
those who are contending for great interests, will find in the
history of this Society precedents which will cheer and encour-
age for all time to come. Like our forefathers we must keep
close to the high moral standard of truth, justice, and right;
and remember that, now and evermore, eternal vigilance must
be the price of true liberty.
Rev. Charles (}. Ames offered the following resolution:
Resolved, That when this meeting adjourns, it shall adjourn
for one year ; and that Robert Purvis, James A. Wright and
Daniel Neall be appointed a committee of arrangements, with
power to add to their number.
The Chairman. — I have the pleasure of introducing Mr.
Edward M. Davis.
Edward M. Davis. — I will second that motion ; but I am
necessarily compelled to defer what I had to say ; it may be
49
until our Centennial meeting. But if I am present at our
contemplated meeting next year, I shall be able to say (what
1 lament I cannot now say), .that it is over fifty years since I
joined the abolition movement.*
The resolution was adopted.
At a late hour the meeting adjourned.
After its close many of the audience came to the platform
to examine the relics there displayed; the box in which a slave
had been, in darkness and peril, borne to Freedom ; the auction
block, a silent testimony to the barbarism passed away; the
table and inkstand sacred to Liberty. Parents brought their
children that they might see and remember, and if possible,
catch something of the spirit which nerved their ancestors to
the great work of the Nineteenth Century.
Thus closed a reunion long to be remembered by those who
participated therein. The old familiar faces were few; thus
emphasizing the fact of changes wrought by time. The hearty
recognition of the truths which had made our country free, in
fact as well as name, was in striking contrast to the days of
the early pioneers of the enterprise; and the enthusiasm of
the large assembly intensified the feeling that it was good for
us to be there.
'Mr. Davis was unavoidably absent from the morning session, much
to his regret.
APPENDIX.
A large number of letters were received bv members of the
committee of arrangements ; many of which were read at the
Meeting.
Among the number are the following :
From WENDELL PHILLIPS.
Boston, December 3d, 1883.
My Dear Purvis : I am very sorry that I cannot be with
you to-morrow.
You know I was not one of the founders of the American
Anti-Slavery Society. But I should be glad to meet the few
who survive of that devoted band, congratulate them on the
marvelous work they began, and join them in rejoicing that so
many of their comrades lived to see the completion and
triumph of their movement. I think that agitation did more
to reveal the workings of Republican institutions, and awaken
men to their dangers and duties as citizens, than any previous
event in our history.
As the Latin proverb says in Carlyle's translation, " Every
road leads to the end of the world," so this movement touched
in its progress all the great questions of the age, right of
private judgment, place of the Bible, questions of race and sex,
the tenure of property, the relations of citizens and law, and
of capitalist to labor, with many others. With all these we
were brought face to face, and manv of them we were forced
to discuss at full length. Now that the first great purpose of
(50)
51
the movement is accomplished, it seems wasteful that the
skill and experience got from thirty years of such labor and
agitation should be lost.
The freedmen still need the protection of a vigilant public
opinion, and will need it for the rest of this generation.
Labor and its kindred question, finance, claim our aid in the
name of that same humanity and justice which originally
stirred us. We always proclaimed that it was not only the
protection of the negro we aimed at, but that we sought to
establish a principle, the rights of human nature.
In that view it seems to me we are narrow and wanting if
we do not contribute the energy and skill which so many years
have aroused and created, to those questions which flow so
naturally out of ours and belong to the same great brother-
hood. Let it not be said that the old abolitionist stopped with
the negro, and was never able to see that the same principles
he had advocated at such cost claimed his utmost effort to pro-
tect all labor, white and black, and to further the discussion of
every claim of down-trodden humanity. Let it be seen that
our experience made us not merely abolitionists, but philan-
thropists. Yours, faithfully.
Wendell Phillips.
Mr. R. Purvis.
From JOHN G. WHITTIER.
Oak Knoll, Danvers, Mass.,
11th mo. 30th, 1883.
My Dear Friend. — I need not saV how gladly I would be
with you at the Semi-Centennial of the American Anti-Slavery
Society. I am, I regret to say, quite unable to gratify this
wish, and can only represent myself by a letter.
Looking back over the long years of half a century, I can
scarcely realize the conditions under which the Convention of
1833 assembled. Slavery was predominant. Like Apollyon in
52
Pilgrim's Progress, it " straddled over the whole breadth of
the way." Church and State, press and pulpit, business inter-
ests, literature, and fashion were prostrate at its feet. Our
Convention, with few exceptions, was composed of men with-
out influence or position, poor and little known, strong only in
their convictions, and faith in the justice of their cause. To
onlookers our endeavor to undo the evil work of two centuries,
and convert "a nation to the "great renunciation" involved in
emancipation, must have seemed absurd in the last degree,
our voices in such an atmosphere found no echo. We could
look for no response but laughs of derision or the missiles of
a mob.
But we felt that we had the strength of truth on our side ;
we were right and all the world about us was wrong. We had
faith, hope, and enthusiasm, and did our work, nothing doubt-
ing, amidst a generation who first despised and then feared
and hated us. For myself I have never ceased to be grateful
to the Divine Providence for the privilege of taking a part in
that work.
And now for more than twenty years we have had a free
country. No slave treads its soil. The anticipated dangerous
consequences of complete emancipation have not been felt.
The emancipated class, as a whole, have done wisely and well
under circumstances of peculiar difficulty. The masters have
learned that cotton can be raised better by free than slave labor,
and nobody now wishes a return to slave-holding. Sectional
prejudices are subsiding, the bitterness of the civil war is slowly
passing away. We are beginning to feel that we are one
people, with no really clashing interests ; and none more truly
rejoice in the growing prosperity of the South than the old
Abolitionists, who hated slavery as a curse to the master as
well as the slave.
In view of this commemorative semi-centennial occasion
many thoughts crowd upon me; memory recalls vanished
faces and voices long hushed ; of those who acted with me in
the Convention fifty years ago, nearly all have passed into
53
another state of being. We who remain must soon follow ;
we have seen the fulfilment of our desire ; we have out-lived
scorn and persecution; the lengthening shadows invite us to
rest. If, in looking back, we feel that we sometimes erred
through impatient zeal in our contest with a great wrong, we
have the satisfaction of knowing that we were influenced' by no
merely selfish considerations. The low light of our setting
sun shines over a free, united people, and our last prayer shall
be for their peace, prosperity, and happiness.
I am truly, thy friend,
John G. Whittier.
From REV. SAMUEL MAY. »
Leicester, Mass., November 29th, 1883.
Dear Friend : Your note of the twenty-seventh, announcing
a commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the formation
of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and inviting my at-
tendance thereat, came to hand this morning. It was my first
knowledge that such a meeting was determined upon and called,
although I heard Mr. Whittier say, last Friday, that a propo-
sition to hold such a meeting had been made.
Surely it should be held. Few events worthier of commemo-
ration have occurred since America was discovered ; none
which, in inception, object, and results, was more honorable to
the American Republic. It called for an almost superhuman
courage and faith ; it demanded the most unreserved and the
most unalloyed self-consecration to truth, justice, and freedom
— to that " rightousness whereby alone a nation may be
exalted." That there were then found men, yes, and women,
in this perverted and blinded republic, to enlist in that great
"holy war," and devote thembelves, come life or leath, to an
uncompromising, unceasing hostility to the infini: j wickedness
and shame of human slavery, can never cease to be remem-
bered, can never cease to be honored, and commemorated in
54
all possible ways, while human nature holds conscience or
faith, and prefers manliness to degradation.
I trust that your meeting, though summoned at so late an
hour, will be wholly successful and worthy of the occasion.
Indeed it can not fail to be so, with the names which are con-
nected with the call. It was my privilege to attend the
twentieth and the thirtieth anniversaries, but it will not be in
my power to be with you at the fiftieth, or jubilee gathering.
By its means many will learn, doubtless for the first time, of
that noble Declaration of Sentiments, which acccompanied the
birth of the American Anti-Slavery Society — a declaration
everv way worthy to stand side by side with the Declaration of
Independence of 1776, since it grew logically out of that, and
was the indispensable complement of it. If this nation is faith-
ful to the principles of these two declarations, it will stand a
free and noble land. Not otherwise can it.
There died in this town, last August, one of those who set
their names to that Declaration of Sentiments, viz : Dr. Horace
P. Wakefield. He was but twenty-four years of age when he
gave his strength and name to it. He lived to see the triumph
and to rejoice in it.
Respectfully yours,
Samuel May.
From REV. SAMUEL LONGFELLOW.
Portland, December 1st, 1883.
Dear Sir: Special engagements here on the day of the
meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society, to which you kindly
invite me, render it impossible for me to be present. Yet I
should like to exchange a word of greeting with those who
will there be met.
What memories will fill all your hearts — both of those whose
recollections go back to the very beginnings, and of those who,
enterinor later into the field where others had sowed and toiled,
55
were quickened by the story they heard from the elders, of the
early struggles, oppositions, dangers, gladly encountered in
behalf of humanity and justice.
One feeling must be in every heart — a feeling made up of
thankfulness and wonder. Thankfulness at the triumph and
the accomplishment, at the slave's emancipation from wrong,
and at the country's liberation from wrong-doing; thankful-
ness, too, at having been privileged to live in such an earnest
time and to aid in such a holy work. And — with this — wonder
that a wrong that seemed so entrenched in all the powers of
State and Church, and social and commercial life, should have
utterlv fallen and passed away, that in the lifetime of those
who, against these powerful odds, set themselves, few and
despised, to righting this wrong. Truly they were not. in
this warfare, without allies ; all the better sentiments of justice
and humanity in the hearts of men were with them, and the
God of justice was with them. " It is the Lord's doing, and
it is marvellous in our eyes," we may well cry, believing that
the highest and holiest feelings of the human heart are inspira-
tions and in-dwellings of God. who works through and with
the human hearts and wills that are set to do His righteousness
and work His will.
One thing He has revealed to us through this — that nothing
that is wrong is really strong.
For whatever new work awaits us may we take fresh courage
and faith from the Anti-Slavery struggle and victory !
Yours for freedom, truth, right,
Samuel Longfellow.
From WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON, JR
Boston, December 2d, 1883.
My Dear Miss Purvis : I shall not be able to avail myself
of your kind invitation to be present at the commemoration of
56
the fiftieth anniversary of the organization of The American
Anti-Slavery Society, much to my regret.
Next to the honor of participation in the launching of the
historic movement, is the privilege of having been born into it.
And, while others will speak words of deserved weight, for
sacrifice incurred and persecution undergone in freedom's
cause, let toe voice the tribute of gratitude cherished by a
younger generation holding its accidental birth to be its chief
good fortune.
Wealth and society have many gifts to bestow ; but the
children of Abolitionists received a heritage beyond the power
of these to give. Who shall compute the value of such habitual
companionship as fell to us? Ours was a wholesome atmos-
phere to breathe. We listened to the discusssion of great .
principles by men and women whose lives were gladly perilled
in their defense. If plain living and high thinking compre-
hend the philosopher's ideal, surely it was attained in anti-
slavery households.
How little did the signers of the famous Declaration of
Sentiments realize that their own emancipation was to come
with that of the slave ! The Revolutionists were revolution-
ized. It was an awakening of souls. There was great com-
motion, and the commingling of strange tongues. The rights
of the negro lost nothing in vigorous advocacy ; but the rights
of women ; the question of non-resistance : the reciprocal rela-
tions and duties of man to society and government ; the nature
and authority of the Bible ; the cause of temperance ; capital
punishment ; and a score of cognate issues shared the attention
of " these narrow reformers of one idea."
Our consciousness awakened upon these seething times. It
was a college of ethics in which we were cradled. Around
us intellect, conscience, argument, earnestness, and wit, met
and grappled. Nor was the gravity of the topics oppressive
to youthful minds, because of the proverbial cheerfulness and
humor that irradiated all in the domestic circle. And with
what anxious fascination did we listen to the combat of the
57
public meetings, intensified by the hostile and threatening ele-
ment which "came to scoff." Moral courage, self-abnegation,
and consecration to great ideas we daily witnessed.
It is this debt of gratitude we owe to the organization of
The American Anti-Slavery Society, which you commemorate
on Tuesday, and which, as one of those who bear a full pro-
portion, it is my happiness to reverently acknowledge,
Very sincerly,
Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Jr.
From GRACE ANNA LEWIS.
Clifton Springs, N. Y.,
To Robert Purvis and November 30th, 1883.
Daniel Neall.
My Dear Friends : It will be impossible for me to meet
with you at Horticultural Hall, on the 4th of December, an
absence which I deeply regret.
It would have been a sad satisfaction to meet on earth with
the remnant of our once full and devoted band. Probably
there is none of us who do not lift our hearts to include
those who have gone higher, with an instinctive faith in the
sympathy which outlives death, and the change from mortality
to immortality. Over your assembly must bend an arch of
calm and radiant souls, rejoicing in the work they were per-
mitted to accomplish while they were with us.
Very truly, yours,
Grace Anna Lewis.
EXTRACT FROM A LETTER FROM WILLIAM
WELLS BROWN, AN ESCAPED SLAVE.
It would afford me great pleasure to shake hands once more
with the small number of survivors of the noble band that
58
organized the Society, and the remaining few who helped to
carry forward the great work to its consummation. But I
find I can not. The very thought of your contemplated meet-
ing takes me back to forty years ago, when I first joined my
voice with the agitators to share with them the fiery discussions
which moulded the public sentiment that put an end to human
slavery. They where then in the freshness, the beauty, and
vigor of youth, and poured forth a flood of logic which rolled
over the nation and brought to the gaze of the world the
hideous system of chattel slavery. For moral courage, self-
sacrifice, indomitable will, true magnetism, patient waiting,
and sublime eloquence, these men and women were without a
parallel in the world's history of reformers. Their like we
shall never see again. When they began their work the
nation was dead to the iniquity and to the wrong they attacked.
When they ceased not a slave clanked his chains under the
Stars and Stripes.
From GILES B. STEBBINS.
No. 180 Henry Street,
Detroit, Mich., November 30th, 1883.
Robert Purvis.
My Friend : Thanks, most earnestly, for your invitation
to attend the " Semi-Centennial of Freedom," in your city,
December 4th. I can not attend in person ; in thought and
spirit I will be with you. Very precious will be such a gath-
ering of the surviving actors in that wonderful anti-slavery
struggle. Those who had no part in it can but faintly realize
its toils and perils, and as little can they realize what a high
privilege and great benefit it was to enlist in that moral war-
fare. From the reminiscences of the pioneers who may meet
with you, the rising generation can catch some gleams of the
heroism and the glory of those ." martyr days " of the early
Abolitionist. On Wednesday afternoon, of this week, but two
59
days ago, I saw the mortal body of Sojourner Truth laid in her
grave, in the pleasant cemetery at Battle Creek, Mich., just
as the setting sun tinged the sky with golden glory ; and had
the privilege — along with Reed Stewart, a clergyman with a
soul great enough to appreciate and reverence her — of telling
something of her fidelity and spiritual greatness to a thousand
people in his church. She, and others, may pass away, but
their words and works will live and help the world upward.
May your meeting be full of value and interest! I trust those
present may gain inspiration and wisdom from the lessons of a
great reform, now happily victorious, and be ready to take
another great step onward.
Truly, yours,
Giles B. Stebbins.
From REV. JOSEPH MAY.
No. 1306 Pine Street,
December 1st, 1883.
My Dear Sir : I regret deeply that on your kind visits to
my house I should have been absent. Accept my sincere
thanks for your friendly pains in calling and for your invita-
tion to the very interesting meeting. You may rely that in
every possible way I will most gladly aid to make it a success.
I do not feel able, however, to appear as a speaker, at such
short notice, on so public and important an occasion. It will
be a deep regret to me not to be able thus to identify myself on
that day with an occasion which stirs so many of my oldest
and most precious associations.
With very sincere regard,
Cordially yours,
Joseph May.
60 -
From the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
Executive Mansion,
Washington, December 6th, 1883.
My Dear Sir : The President duly received your note
of the 24th ultimo, but in the multiplicity of his duties, and
especially during the past week in the preparation of his
annual message to Congress, it has been unavoidably over-
looked.
He directs me, therefore, in acknowledging its receipt, to
express his regret that he was unable to give it prompt atten-
tion, as it would have afforded him much pleasure to express
his deep sympathy with the meeting and the interest he felt in
a proper commemoration of the organization of so historical
and important a body as The American Anti-Slavery Society.
Very truly, yours,
Fred. J. Phillips,
Private Secretary.
From GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
West New Brighton,
Staten Island, N. Y.,
November 28th, 1883.
My Dear Sir: If I could possibly do it I would accept
your kind invitation with sincere pleasure, but I am too closely
engaged, and I can do no more than the very little of sending
you my hearty sympathy and good wishes.
Truly, yours,
George William Curtis.
61
From OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
Boston, November 30th, 1883.
* My Dear Sir : I regret that I can not be present at the
celebration of the Semi-Centennial of Freedom. I do not
feel that I have any special right to be there, as I was later in
wakin<* to the davbreak of freedom than manv of my less
sleepv friends, but no one can sympathize more heartily with
the heroes of the great struggle than I have done since my
eves have been opened.
Very truly yours.
0. W. Holmes.
From FRANCIS J. GARRISON.
ROCKLEDGE, ROXBURY,
November 28th, 1883.
Dear Mr. Lewis : I thank you for sending me the circular
announcement of the semi-centennial anniversary of the forma-
tion of The American Anti-Slavery Society, to be held in
Philadelphia next week. In view of the part which my dear
father took in the original Convention, I very much regret
that no one of his sons can be present at the celebration to
represent the name, but you will not lack the presence and the
speech of the children of others of the early signers ; and
in vour chairman you will have one of the few survivors of the
little band who affixed their names to the solemn and weighty
" Declaration of Sentiments " of 1833. I hope he will not be
alone, but I fear that all of his old associates who may respond
to the roll call can be counted on the fingers of one hand. In
looking over the list I can find but three, besides himself,
whom I know to be alive and in the flesh to-day. and two of
these (John G. Whittier and Elizur Wright) I had the pleasure
of meeting last week at the eightieth birthday celebration of
62
our dear and venerated friend, Theodore D. Weld. Doubtless
there are others still surviving, but they are few compared with
those who were able to attend the Third Decade Meeting in
1863. It is a remarkable fact that of the sixty signers of the
Declaration, forty-three lived to see the abolition of slavery,
and of these forty-three, eleven attended the Third Decade
Meeting. Most of these have now joined the "great majority,"
and the faces and voices of Samuel J. May, James Miller
McKim, James Mott, Bartholemew Fussell, Thomas Whitson,
and others, including the author of the Declaration, will be
missed from the gathering next week, but their spirits will be
there, nevertheless, and they will be silent participants in the
proceedings. The ranks are empty here, but they are very
nearly full there; and it is easy to imagine the joy and satis-
faction with which they look back over their life-work here,
and contemplate to-day the nation redeemed, and the race de-
livered through the moral agitation inaugurated at Philadel-
phia in 1833. And still they would say, in the words of their
inspired associate, the poet who ik sets a higher value on his
name as appended to the Anti-Slavery Declaration of 1833,
than on the title page of any book," and who, happily, is
still spared to us ;
" Not unto us who did but seek,
The word that burned within to speak ;
Not unto us this day belong,
The triumph and exultant song."
*******
" The praise O Lord ! is Thine alone,
In Thine own way Thy work is done !
Our poor gifts at Thy feet are cast,
To whom be glory, first and last."
Trusting that this semi-centennial anniversary will be in
every way successful, and with sincere regards,
I am, faithfully yours,
Francis J. Garrison.
63
From HENRY B. STANTON.
New York, December 1st, 1883.
Ho;sT. Robert Purvis and
Dr. Daniel Neall,
Gentlemen: I have received your circular letter requesting
me to attend the semi-centennial celebration of the organiza-
tion of The American Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia,
in December, 1883. I thank you for this invitatkfi, and
regret that business engagements will prevent my acceptance
of it.
I was not in the Convention that organized the Society, but
I was personally acquainted with many of its members. I
was in full sympathy with the principles upon which the
Society was based, and had been their advocate since the
summer of 1832, when in a public debate. I took radical
ground against slavery. I addressed the first meeting of the
Society, in May, 1834, in the city of New York ; and was
subsequently for several years a member of its Executive Com-
mittee, and one of its Corresponding Secretaries, and traveled
extensively through the country delivering speeches in defence
of its doctrines and measures.
I mention these facts because they enable me to say that
in the whole course of my life. I have never come in contact
with any other body of men and women so noble, so brave, so
unselfish, so devoted to a good but unpopular cause, as were
the early abolitionists. Alas, how few of them are left to us !
But thanks to God, their labors were not in vain. The
slave is free. The principles which The American Anti-
Slavery Society promulgated are incorporated into the Consti-
tution of the United States ; and there they will remain while
the Republic endures.
Yours respectfully,
Henry B. Stanton.
64
From SAMUEL D. HASTINGS.
Madison, Wis., December 3d, 1883.
Robt. Purvis, Esq., Chairman, and
Daniel Neall, Esq., Secretary,
Philadelphia.
Gentlemen : Absence from the city prevented the receipt
of your invitation to be present at the celebration of the Semi-
centennial of Freedom, in time for an earlier response.
I very much regret my inability to be present at the pro-
posed gathering.
I had not the honor of being a member of the Convention
that organized the American Anti-Slavery Society, as I was
then but seventeen years of age, but I very soon after joined
the Anti-Slavery ranks, and it was my privilege to stand by
the side of the heroic men who composed that convention all
through the great struggle, until one after another, many of
them were called from their labors to their reward.
Yours truly,
Sam'l D. Hastings.
From SAMUEL EVANS.
Columbia, Pa., November 30th, 1883.
To Robert Purvis, Chairman,
Daniel Neall, Secretary.
Sirs: Your letter inviting me to participate in the celebra-
tion of the Semi-Centennial of the American Anti-Slavery
Society, is received, and I regret very much that previous
engagements for the fourth and fifth days of December will
preclude the possibility of my attendance on this interesting
occasion.
For more than forty years it was my fortune to reside in a
community that formed one of the most important out-posts in
65
the small army of Anti-Slavery friends. Hundreds of pant-
ing fugitives, seeking safety in a land of freedom, found their
way to Columbia, many of them piloted by an agent of the
Underground Railroad. Some, however, were guided hither
by the North Star.
A large portion of the community was composed of colored
people, many of whom were manumitted slaves. There wjre
also a number of colored men and women who were born south
of Mason and Dixon's line, and were not permitted to own
themselves, who when they came among people of their own
color, could not resist the temptation, and tarried among them.
The slave holder and his minions also came to this place of
refuge, and frequently made it uncomfortably warm, not only
for the black man, but for his friends also. I might detail to
vou manv cases in the conflict between slavery and freedom,
in which the number of victories preponderated on the side of
the oppressed. * * * *
Yours truly,
Samuel B. Evans.
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